You & I
by kiarcheo
Summary: Loosely based on Pezberry week theme: Tuesday, May 13th: Reacquainting after years apart (and also a bit of rewriting a scene/fixing canon like the previous theme).


Start during 'Asian F'. English is still not my first language, thanks to slacker_d for helping me.

* * *

"Is it true?"

"What are you talking about?" Rachel continued to arrange her locker, not looking at Santana.

"Did you really let Beyoncé have the lead?"

"What if I did?" Rachel shrugged.

"You were better. You're always better. You deserved that role, it was yours."

"Santana," Rachel turned to her. "Why do you care? You hate me."

"I don't hate you," Santana frowned. "You know that."

"I know," Rachel waved her hand in dismissal. "But until you're ready to act like it, I prefer to think you hate me. It hurts less."

"What if I tell you that I'm ready?"

"Then show, don't tell," Rachel said, before leaving.

.

Santana's father looked over his daughter's shoulder, who was sitting at the kitchen table, writing. He peered at her paper 'Wooing R'. He chuckled. "Who is the lucky girl?"

"How did you-" Santana looked up at her dad, surprised and a bit scared, since she had never told her parents about her feelings for girls.

He interrupted her. "I know that you kids nowadays are all about equality, and girls doing the same things as boys, but I don't think that you're at point where girls woo boys. At least not using that term. Seducing? Yes. Wooing? You woo a girl."

"Oh,"

"But still…a list?" He chuckled.

"It's hard, and I need it. Besides, she likes them."

"She's high maintenance, eh?"

"How did you guess?"

"I tell you a secret. From father to…well, daughter. All girls are high maintenance. No matter what they tell you, they are. It's something that comes with them being girls. What changes is the level of maintenance…how high is yours?"

"She is going to be a star someday, and she knows it."

"That high?"

"And she expects people to treat her like that already. And not everyone agrees," Santana continued after nodding to her father's question.

"But you do?"

"She deserves everything."

"You're really smitten," he smiled as Santana blushed.

"So," he leaned against the table. "What are you planning?"

"I don't know. It has to be big," Santana sighed.

"Already messed up?" he teased her. "Before even starting?" he continued incredulous and amused as Santana morosely nodded her head.

"Come on, your old man will help you," he sat down next to her. "What does she like?" he started reading, "Broadway, musicals, singing, Barbra Streisand, gold star, vegan food, argyle…Wait, is she in Glee club with you?"

"Rachel IS the Glee club, no matter what the others say."

"Rachel," he touched his chin thoughtfully.

"Short one, big voice," Santana prompted.

"The one who sang Don't Rain on my Parade?" he asked amazed.

"Exactly."

"She is good."

"I know, she's going to take New York by storm."

"She's moving after graduation?"

"There's never been a doubt, I think she's been planning it since she won her first competition, that would be when she was like three months old."

"Wow."

"You should have seen how happy she was when we went to NY for Nationals. There was a light in her eyes…I didn't think that she could be more beautiful, but she was."

"Take her there," he cut her off.

"What?"

"You need to make up for something, right?"

"And show that I'm serious."

"What's more serious than talking about the future?"

"You want me to take Rachel to New York?"

"You can leave a Friday, stay two days, visit a bit, catch a show and come back for school on Monday."

"You'd let me?"

"It would be a better way to spend money than your usual ones."

Santana rolled her eyes, but she hugged him. "Thank you."

.

"You and I. And NY, what do you say?" Santana leant against Rachel's locker.

Rachel spun around, beaming. "You had me at-"

"New York?" Santana guessed.

"Actually, you and I, but NY is a wonderful bonus," Rachel corrected her. "But what brought it up?" she narrowed her eyes.

"This is me, showing you that I'm serious. I like you, and I plan to show you how much and make up for everything I did, starting now," Santana held out her hand as Rachel closed her locked. "I'll walk you to your car."

Rachel smiled at her, taking her hand.

"I quit the musical."

Rachel stopped in her tracks and pulled Santana's hand to stop her too. "You didn't have to do that. Not for me, just because I won't be."

"Who said that it was for you?" Santana raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, sorry," she retracted as she felt Rachel letting go of her hand. "I still need to get used to it," Santana held up their linked hands.

Rachel pursued her lips, but conceded it to her and started walking again towards her car.

"Rach?" Santana called as Rachel was already sitting in her car. "I tried out for Anita because I thought we could have spent time together without," she hesitated a bit. "Suspicion, you know. We would have rehearsed together, maybe just us alone too, seeing that our characters would have been best friends. And I really wanted to sing with you," she scratched her neck, looking away.

Rachel put a hand on Santana's stomach, then pulled her uniform top to get the Cheerio to look at her. "We can do it anyway. Singing together I mean," she blushed, and Santana smirked suggestively, before becoming serious.

"I don't want to be Anita, if you're not my Maria. Besides, it would have taken up precious time that I can now spend with you."

"I think it's one of the nicest thing someone ever did for me," Rachel smiled lovingly at her.

"And you still haven't seen anything," Santana promised her.

.

"Any suggestion for the date?" Santana was lying on her bed watching Rachel finish her Spanish homework.

"What was wrong with the previous ones?" Rachel turned to her frowning.

"Nothing," Santana laughed. "Our dates are always perfect. Come on, it's you and I, how could it be any different?"

Rachel rolled her eyes.

"You know that you find my self-confidence sexy," Santana teased her, and Rachel sighed but nodded. "I was talking about our trip to New York."

Rachel lit up at the thought. "As a matter of fact, I do," she glanced around the desk. "Do you have a calendar?"

"Here," Santana stretched to grab it from her bedside table and handed it to Rachel.

"You kept it?" Rachel's voice was surprised. "And you used it." She looked at Santana, teary.

"Why wouldn't I?" Santana was a bit annoyed that Rachel was so taken aback. "Didn't you give it to me exactly for that purpose?"

"Finn thought it was creepy," Rachel caressed with her fingers the photos on the calendar. "I even found one in the trash."

"Finn is an idiot!" Santana snapped. "And I bet that after refusing to use it, he forgot the dates."

Rachel didn't answer.

"I really don't get why you dated him," Santana said, patting down on the bed.

"Well, it's not like there was the line of people to date me," Rachel joined Santana on the bed. "And someone was still being stubborn…" she nudged Santana, who rolled her eyes.

"You know what's good about you having dated Frankenteen?" Santana pulled down Rachel, so that she was lying beside her. "That he was such an awful boyfriend, that everything I do will always be a step up."

"I have to admit that in the short time we'd been together you'd already been a better girlfriend than Finn. What?" Rachel asked as Santana laughed.

"You just called him your girlfriend," she wheezed out. "I knew that I was right to call him Finnessa."

Rachel swatted her arm lightly. "Are you done?"

Santana nodded, stifling her chuckles.

"Good. I was thinking we could go these days," Rachel pointed to the days on the calendar.

"Okay, for me it's the same," Santana shrugged, and then stared at Rachel, who had a strange expression on her face. "Why do I feel like I'm missing something?"

Rachel gave her an innocent look. Too innocent to be sincere. "You're up to something," Santana accused.

"Maybe," Rachel smiled coyly.

.

"Rachel," Santana jogged over to her girlfriend, a sheet in her hand.

"Hi," Rachel smiled at her.

"Did you see this?" Santana showed her the flyer that announced the school musical.

"Yes."

"It's during our NY weekend," she explained.

"I know," Rachel said calmly.

"Do you want to go another time?"

"Uhm," Rachel tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Let me think…Staying in Lima to watch a mediocre high school production, with someone else in the role that should have been mine, and assist to the more than probable butchering of one of my favorite musical, or going to New York, the city of my dreams and that I consider my true home, with my girlfriend, and watch a show on Broadway? It's such an hard decision…"

"Sarcastic much?" Santana commented.

"Must be your influence," Rachel smirked at her, knowing that it unnerved Santana because it was really similar to her own smirk.

"So…wanna skip and visit the janitor closet with me?" Santana took a chance to see how much influence she actually had on Rachel.

"Santana!" the diva looked at her appalled. "I can't believe you would suggest such a thing. You shouldn't take your education so lightly. It's extremely important that-"

Santana smiled and tuned out the rant she knew by heart: yep, she was still her Rachel.

.

Rachel skipped into the choir room, her long weekend with her girlfriend in New York and the lack of slushies received that day leaving her in a really good mood.

"Look what the cat dragged in," Kurt sneered.

"Coming to gloat?" Mercedes echoed him.

"Why didn't you answer me? I was worried," Finn pouted.

"Where have you been?" Mr. Schuester asked.

"Hello my fellow teammates, thank you for asking, my weekend has been amazing, I trust the same can be said of yours," Rachel tried to hide her sarcasm behind a big show-smile.

"Cut the crap," Mercedes growled in a rasping voice.

"What's going on?" Santana arrived, pinky linked with Brittany's.

The blonde looked around. "I think they are angry at Rachel because Mercedes lost her voice and they tried to call Rachel so that she could be Maria, but she didn't answer."

"I forgot my phone at home," Rachel admitted. "But even if I hadn't, I couldn't have been here anyway."

Kurt and Mercedes scoffed.

"I told you that I wouldn't be around," Rachel looked first at Mr. Schuester, who nodded, and then at her teammates.

"Because you were envious and couldn't bear to see me in my rightful place on the stage," Mercedes said.

"Because I was going out of town," Rachel corrected her, moving towards a chair.

"And where did you go?" Kurt asked, in a tone that clearly said that he didn't believe her.

"New York."

"Sure," Mercedes mocked her.

"I can show you the photos if you want," Rachel said calmly.

"She can," Brittany nodded, sitting down next to Santana, who was on the chair besides Rachel. "I saw them. They are really cute."

"What happened with the show?" Santana asked, knowing that if they let Brittany babble, it would come out that she was in NY with Rachel, and they still hadn't discussed about coming out to the club.

"Mercedes lost her voice a couple days before opening night, and she didn't get back it in time, not even foregoing the last rehearsals," Tina explained softly. "Without Rachel there was no one who could play Maria, especially in such a short time, and with no Maria, there is no play. We cancelled the shows."

"I see," Santana looked at Rachel, who had a blank, almost sad face, but a satisfied gleam in her eyes. She thought back to something Rachel said while they were in New York and they were waiting for the second act to start. Something about the strain put on the voice by eight performances a week, and how she had been training her voice since forever to be able to pull it off once she'd get her occasion to shine. Santana remembered clearly Rachel saying, off-handily, that she wouldn't be surprised if some people cast in their school musical, unused to such a schedule of rehearsals, would end up losing their voices before the shows, killed by the rehearsal alone.

"You knew it!" Santana hissed to Rachel. "You knew that it would happen!"

"Maybe" Rachel shrugged, seemingly with no emotions whatsoever, but Santana knew her girlfriend well enough to detect amusement and a bit of pride.

"You're evil."

"And it's a bad thing?" Rachel didn't sound worried, but smug.

"Nah," Santana shook her head, still incredulous. "It's hot."


End file.
